Coronavirus (COVID-19 Outbreak) (45 Viewers)

swag

L'autista
Administrator
Sep 23, 2003
83,433
I doubt any action would have made a dent in the 4 million. A lot of those deaths were the artificially kept alive thanks to excess of resources in places like america where 400 lbs specimens don't even raise an eyebrow anymore, that's why you see much less effect in places where said people would have been dead long ago. I applaud the spirit behind the sanctity of life, but as with every policy the most important question always is: at what price? So the math would have been something like if we dont do anything 4.1 will die, if we do 4 will die but in the process we will create financial collapse of say at least a billion people, is it worth it? Obviously this is just me pulling numbers out of my ass, but no one has numbers on the effects and to me the lack of data alone is cause for pause before any rash action.

And yes, i do believe there's a seismic shift in resources thanks to covid, the past year has seen a power reshuffling i never witnessed before. When the dust settles i suspect it would be dubbed the heist of history.
So you don't think the existing vaccines are making a difference.

What are you looking at to give you that suspicion of a lack of efficacy? Not just the RCTs leading through safety and two stages of efficacy have been pretty convincing to me, but also the post-distribution studies in Israel, etc. So statistically I am getting a pretty good sense that there is definite upside in most vaccines.

Yeah, in places like the US the dead were basically people on walking life support who had their scales tipped early. But there's definitely an phenomenon of older, Global North nations experiencing variants hitting people ever younger and also the relatively young, Global South nations finally experiencing the impacts more recently ... and seemingly being the source of some of these variants that are affecting younger, theoretically healthier people.

The math is extremely complex and everything comes with tradeoffs ... whether mental health, cancer screening, social development of children, etc. But in the short term, I don't fault anyone for not wanting their critical health care systems to collapse. Beyond that, the harm/benefit analysis gets a lot muddier to me.

But when it comes to the heist of history, how much of that is the disease/virus itself ... and how much of that is the usual exploitation of change by everything from governments, businesses, con artists, social movements, and the like? It's like there's always a posse of people pouncing on change and uncertainty to wedge for exploitation and massive financial gain.
 

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GordoDeCentral

Diez
Moderator
Apr 14, 2005
69,296
So you don't think the existing vaccines are making a difference.

What are you looking at to give you that suspicion of a lack of efficacy? Not just the RCTs leading through safety and two stages of efficacy have been pretty convincing to me, but also the post-distribution studies in Israel, etc. So statistically I am getting a pretty good sense that there is definite upside in most vaccines.

Yeah, in places like the US the dead were basically people on walking life support who had their scales tipped early. But there's definitely an phenomenon of older, Global North nations experiencing variants hitting people ever younger and also the relatively young, Global South nations finally experiencing the impacts more recently ... and seemingly being the source of some of these variants that are affecting younger, theoretically healthier people.

The math is extremely complex and everything comes with tradeoffs ... whether mental health, cancer screening, social development of children, etc. But in the short term, I don't fault anyone for not wanting their critical health care systems to collapse. Beyond that, the harm/benefit analysis gets a lot muddier to me.

But when it comes to the heist of history, how much of that is the disease/virus itself ... and how much of that is the usual exploitation of change by everything from governments, businesses, con artists, social movements, and the like? It's like there's always a posse of people pouncing on change and uncertainty to wedge for exploitation and massive financial gain.
No as i said before, vaccine is up to you, though i doubt we will have any significant efficacy over the long haul. My point was about measures like lockdown and business shutdown.


As for the heist, it is the disease, because it has been weaponized to effect the change imo
 

GordoDeCentral

Diez
Moderator
Apr 14, 2005
69,296
What do you see happening country wise (world-wide)?
Well for one they did condition people to a social credit program, you do what you are told you can enjoy what society has to offer. I see more businesses being government reliant and overall less freedom of enterprise.

On the international level, we are sprinting to globalization, instead of america throwing its weight around to get things done, it will just be the powers shunning this or that country into submission. It doesn't matter if you are democratic or no as long as you push the dictates passed on to you.
 

swag

L'autista
Administrator
Sep 23, 2003
83,433
No as i said before, vaccine is up to you, though i doubt we will have any significant efficacy over the long haul. My point was about measures like lockdown and business shutdown.


As for the heist, it is the disease, because it has been weaponized to effect the change imo
Yes, the vaccine is up to you and all. But that's a personal values question. The question is more whether you think it's actually producing benefits or not ... which I came to doubt by your "I doubt any action would have made a dent in the 4 million" comment.

Over the longer haul, I do see a scenario closer to the flu where we'll try to anticipate innoculations, will get it partly right, but will also have reactive elements.

I don't think we can ever truly get to lockdown and business shutdown conclusiveness, however. A RCT really isn't possible, let alone ethical. And we've tried loose causal analysis between countries and their policies for example (Sweden vs Denmark, etc.). But really, reducing the difference of a society and economy in two nations to just a government response is insanely weak at best.

So the disease to weaponize desired policy... I see where that might come from. But I don't see that necessarily playing out. I wish I could say that wealthy property owners conspired to jack up their asset values through this, but I am not making a clear connection there.

But then I am also in a country that has to re-evaluate state of emergency every 14 days because of a legacy of five centuries of totalitarian governance in the last century. The laws and their implementation can be different depending how fresh the worst abuses are in the mind of the governed. Assuming they have a say.

Well for one they did condition people to a social credit program, you do what you are told you can enjoy what society has to offer. I see more businesses being government reliant and overall less freedom of enterprise.

On the international level, we are sprinting to globalization, instead of america throwing its weight around to get things done, it will just be the powers shunning this or that country into submission. It doesn't matter if you are democratic or no as long as you push the dictates passed on to you.
You think globalization hasn't taken a major hit in the past couple of years? Supply chains are being nationalized way more now. The Internet is splitting between continental plates. Brexit. The U.S. finally pulling out of Afghanistan. I see far more reasons to think globalization is decreasing rather than increasing.
 

GordoDeCentral

Diez
Moderator
Apr 14, 2005
69,296
Yes, the vaccine is up to you and all. But that's a personal values question. The question is more whether you think it's actually producing benefits or not ... which I came to doubt by your "I doubt any action would have made a dent in the 4 million" comment.

Over the longer haul, I do see a scenario closer to the flu where we'll try to anticipate innoculations, will get it partly right, but will also have reactive elements.

I don't think we can ever truly get to lockdown and business shutdown conclusiveness, however. A RCT really isn't possible, let alone ethical. And we've tried loose causal analysis between countries and their policies for example (Sweden vs Denmark, etc.). But really, reducing the difference of a society and economy in two nations to just a government response is insanely weak at best.

So the disease to weaponize desired policy... I see where that might come from. But I don't see that necessarily playing out. I wish I could say that wealthy property owners conspired to jack up their asset values through this, but I am not making a clear connection there.

But then I am also in a country that has to re-evaluate state of emergency every 14 days because of a legacy of five centuries of totalitarian governance in the last century. The laws and their implementation can be different depending how fresh the worst abuses are in the mind of the governed. Assuming they have a say.



You think globalization hasn't taken a major hit in the past couple of years? Supply chains are being nationalized way more now. The Internet is splitting between continental plates. Brexit. The U.S. finally pulling out of Afghanistan. I see far more reasons to think globalization is decreasing rather than increasing.

I think it really comes down to what is the ultimate goal and i don't agree that the ethical choice is to save as many lives as possible no matter the cost.

As for wealth redistribution just take a look at the top billionaires doubling their net worth, that came from somewhere.

Globalization is afoot alright, the only question is will we see a real significant pushback.
 

swag

L'autista
Administrator
Sep 23, 2003
83,433
I think it really comes down to what is the ultimate goal and i don't agree that the ethical choice is to save as many lives as possible no matter the cost.

As for wealth redistribution just take a look at the top billionaires doubling their net worth, that came from somewhere.

Globalization is afoot alright, the only question is will we see a real significant pushback.
The harsh reality is that we typically throw economics on most everything, including a price tag on a human life. My brother is an actuary ... he does it professionally.

A civil society should try to protect life. But some people are just destined to lose the natural selection game show -- either by age, bad luck, bad health, stupidity, or self-destructiveness. And as much as we can do liver transplants, I'm a strong advocate that not everyone should get them and we'd likely go bankrupt if we did.

There are tradeoffs even if you hold your ICU beds filling up as a line not to cross. Things catastrophically get ugly quickly, but you can't write a blank check to reach it either.

Anyone taken those self COVID tests yet? What does the C mean? B204BCE6-C2D2-4BE0-B662-815F83D711EC.jpeg
Those things have been handed out at parties like candy over the last couple of months here. ;)

The Ministry of Economic Affairs generally should advocate for something like that. They should know better than most from their economic perspective. Same for virologists and epidemiologists when it comes to questions about infection spread. I would be concerned if you have a surgeon general making economic statements and an economist making claims about infection rates.
 

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